Top 5 Bad Driving Habits

I spend a lot of time on the road. Most of it is just driving at a normal pace going from point A to point B. All this time on the road allows me to come across a wide variety of driving styles. I wish to share with you the things that drive me, and probably you, crazy while on the road. I’m sure there are many more annoyances that people perform on a daily basis and you can point them out to me in the comments. The ones below are the top 5 in my book!

5. Driving Under The Speed Limit – This is pretty annoying. I don’t drive extremely fast or anything but I do normally drive around 10-15mph over the speed limit. So while on a two lane road, getting behind someone that wants to drive 40mph in a 50mph zone is something that gets under my skin. This behavior doesn’t bother me too much on the highway because these people normally stay right and are scared to death of their car. In my opinion, if you can’t maintain control of your car at the posted speed limit you probably shouldn’t have a license to drive.

4. Not Using Your Directional – We’ve all been here, driving down the road and the person in front of you is slowing down. There doesn’t appear to be anyone or anything in the path of the road but this person is still on the brakes. You would go around them but you just don’t know if they see something you don’t since all indication states that they are going to continue on their current path. Then they turn into whatever mini mall or gas station that is there. If they would’ve put there directional on you could’ve just went around them and continued on your way without having to come to almost a complete stop. This happens on the highway too, you’ll be on the interstate motoring along at a pretty good clip and someone will just pull into your travel lane without even letting you know. You pull up next to them and give them a look and they’re looking at you like you did something wrong. These people must thing that we are mind readers or something. I’m a big fan of following the rules of the road and letting everyone around me know what I’m doing. We take for granted how heavy and dangerous our vehicles can be. Just using your directional could make life easier for everyone and driving much less stressful. I’ll even say that people use there directional so infrequently that I don’t even trust people who have them on. I’m sure you’ve all see that car driving down the highway with the directional on that never makes a turn. I know it’s just a mistake, and everybody makes them, but we need to be more careful.

3. Not Maintaining Speed – As I’ve grown older, and drive more and more miles, the cruise control option in my car is much more appealing. It keeps me out of trouble (by keeping my speed down!) and allows my car to get better gas milage on the highway. This has also allowed me to see that noone is able to maintain their speed while on the highway. I regularly get passed by someone who was riding right up on my bumper only to later on pass them because they were unable to maintain their previous speed. This only really bothers me when I can no longer keep the cruise control on because they are now in my way and I have to slow down. My tip for these people is to use the cruise control, almost all cars today come equipped with it!

2. Cutting The Line – This is the one I hate the most and really riles me up! The only time I would find this acceptable is when the person doesn’t know the area, but if you know the traffic pattern this should not happpen. I’m talking about that person who thinks that they are too good to wait in line and goes straight to the front of the exit or toll booth. You wouldn’t do that on a line in the food store so what makes you think it’s ok in your car? I honestly try not to do that and actually wait in line for my turn, it may take me a little longer to get to where I’m going but at least I’m not acting like a jerk!

1. Failure To Keep Right – This is a problem that everyone at one point or another is guilty of, whether it’s because cruise control keeps you next to someone that cannot maintain their speed or just a lack of paying attention. The golden rule of the road is to keep right, pass left. I’ve come up on people riding in the left lane with no one around them! What are these people thinking! I always expect that if someone is riding in the left lane they are passing or are about to pass someone, so I will wait behind them until they finish their pass and move over for me. I’ve waited for quite some time on occasion only to finally move right and see that there are no cars around. Where’s that golden rule? What if someone is going extremely fast? Most likely they will expect a single vehicle to be in the right lane and act accordingly. If you are not where you are supposed to be you make the driver of the other car make adjustments to where they plan on going, and if you combine this with any of the other driving mistakes listed above, the results can be disastrous! Just think, that fast car no has to go right and the driver in the left lane sees him coming and moves right with no directional making the fast car make multiple corrections. If you think, what’s the harm of riding in the left lane, that is it.

All of these rules are in the drivers manual and all of us had to take an actual driving test, and follow these rules to obtain our drivers license. The idea that we don’t need to use our directionals or can just drive wherever we want is ludicrous. We should all be striving to give the other drivers on the road as much information about what we are planning on doing as possible. This will keep the guessing down and the accidents to a minimum. The roads would be quite a bit safer if we all would actuall follow the rules as they are written in the drivers manual.